HARD WICKE'S S CIENCE- G OS SIP. 



151 



finger, keeping tlie feathers away from the flesh. 

 Skin carefully over the head, and when you come to 

 the eyes extract them. After this sever the skull 

 from the neck, which exposes the brain, which must 

 be scooped out with the point of the knife. Now 

 dress the skull all over with the preservative com- 

 pound, and fill up the brain-case and orbits with tow. 

 Now dress the skin with the same and dust over with 

 dry plaster of Paris. Clean away the meat from 

 the tail, wings, and legs, and dress with preservative. 

 Now insert some tow into the body, and when you 

 have made it as nearly as possible like to it when 

 living, sew up with needle and thread by an under 

 stitch on the edge of the skin. The eyes, which may 

 be got from Gardner's, 426 Oxford Street, may now 

 be inserted. A wire, called the body-wire, should pass 

 through the body from the tail to the head, and 

 another up both of the legs, by which they should 

 be fastened to branches, <S:c. Some taxidermists paint 

 the gills and combs of pheasants, fowls, &c, so as to 

 make them keep their colour. They should after- 

 wards be varnished with copal varnish. A label 

 should be attached to the legs, giving the scientific 

 and common name of the bird, sex, locality and date 

 thus : — 



SterjiHs vulgaris. 

 Starling <?. 



Sheftield, 6/9/81. 



J. w. w. 



Sometimes a little blood gets on the wings : this 

 may be taken off by rubbing the bird down in the 

 way of the feathers with some common French 

 benzoline ; afterwards dusting over with plaster of 

 Paris, which may when dry be removed with a 

 soft bundle of feathers. 



J. W. Williams. 



WesLy College, Sheffield. 



LIST OF ASSISTING NATURALISTS. 

 Gloucestershire. 

 J. R. Neve, Campden. Botany. 



Land Snails. — I know little about the land 

 snails of my district, but, perhaps it may be interest- 

 ing to other readers, as well as F. Roberts, to know 

 I have found the following freshwater snails. Anodon 

 (plentiful, for which he inquires). Neritina, Limpet 

 (the lake species) ; paludina (larger kind) ; Flaiiorbis, 

 including corjieus, Limnea stagnalis and the wide- 

 mouthed mud snail. I shall be pleased to give 

 further information personally. — John Alex. Ollard, 

 F.R.M.S., Enfield. 



AN EDITOR'S HOLIDAY IN THE 

 ARDENNES. 



A RAPID railway dash last year through the forest 

 on my way to Switzerland by way of Brussels 

 and Luxembourg — with momentary glimpses of bright 

 streams and rocky cliffs — begot the desire to explore 

 the country further. Thanks to the arrangements of 

 the Great Eastern Railway Company, this desire was 

 easy of fulfilment. A companion and I started from 

 Harwich, a little after nine in the evening, in the 

 roomy and luxurious steamer " Claude Hamilton." 

 There was an hour and a half to spare at Brussels, 

 which was j)rofitably spent in the adjacent Botanical 

 Gardens. Notwithstanding, we had reached Namur, 

 and had started on our pedestrian journey up the 

 valley of the Meuse for Dinant, at half-past two in 

 the afternoon — or in about seventeen hours after 

 leaving Harwich. 



It was a charming afternoon at the end of May. 

 The blue sky was creased with long folds of white 

 clouds. The valley (with the exception of the wind- 

 ing white road) was as green as early summer herbage 

 could make it. Nightingales warbled to each other, 

 from both sides the river, from every copse. The 

 majestic stream flowed smoothly and swiftly as rapids 

 before a fall, its continuity broken every mile or so 

 by a concave white line which proclaimed a weir. 

 The cuckoo's *' wandering voice " fell upon us from 

 overhead. The atmosphere was softly full of those 

 lulling but blended sounds which soothe the mind, 

 and produce a gentle peace which passeth under- 

 standing. Noise of falling waters, swish of moving 

 stream, cadences of summer breezes, bird-music and 

 insect music — these are harmonic materials enough 

 for one of nature's brightest cantatas ! 



This upper part of the Meuse valley seems to me 

 like that of the Thames and one of the Derbyshire 

 "dales" rolled into one. Almost the entire area of 

 the country we traversed is occupied by rocks of 

 lower Carboniferous age — the eastern end of that 

 chain of Palaeozoic rocks let down under London, 

 and there frequently reached during deep well 

 borings, and which crops up westerly along the 

 Mendips. 



Here in the Meuse valley we have the representa- 

 tives of the Carboniferous limestone, the Yoredale 

 shales, and the Millstone grit. Again and again we 

 came across these three members. Their different 

 degrees of hardness leads to a peculiar and charac- 

 teristic mode of weathering. The valleys of all the 

 Ardennes rivers traverse these rocks in all directions, 

 and it needs little special training to see how geologi- 

 cally ancient all the valleys must be. That of the 

 Meuse is strikingly so. The rocks have been up- 

 heaved at a high, sometimes even at a vertical angle, 

 and have slowly weathered in this position. Thick 

 beds of limestone harder than the rest have been 



